"Other presidents 'jawbone,' but Obama 'extorts'"

[EriktheRed]

Once again demonstrating how most of what ignorant cons bash the current Prez for are things his predecessors did:

Back in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy, fearing an inflation uptick, threatened to use steel stockpiles to lower prices if the steel industry didn't overturn a recent price increase, it was called traditional "jawboning."

Reaction, as is pretty much always the case, fell along party lines, with the party not in the Oval Office opposing the action. Economists criticized it as bad policy, Republicans criticized it as wrong-headed and unwarranted government intrusion. Democrats naturally hailed the move as an example of strong leadership and a fine use of the bully pulpit.

Lyndon Johnson, a veteran of Senate arm-twisting and cajoling, jawboned to forestall airline and railroad strikes and such.

Richard Nixon decried the Democrats' jawboning but then, with inflation getting out of control, said, "We will have jawboning." And we did, until Nixon tweaked the free market system ever-so-slightly by imposing a wage and price freeze.

washingtonpost.com